[PERSPECTIVES] The Self-Assembling Process and Applications in Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering strives to create neotissues capable of restoring function. Scaffold-free technologies have emerged that can recapitulate native tissue function without the use of an exogenous scaffold. This review will survey, in particular, the self-assembling and self-organization processes as scaffold-free techniques. Characteristics and benefits of each process are described, and key examples of tissues created using these scaffold-free processes are examined to provide guidance for future tissue-engineering developments. We aim to explore the potential of self-assembly and self-organization scaffold-free approaches, detailing the recent progress in the in vitro tissue engineering of biomimetic tissues with these methods toward generating functional tissue replacements.

Source: Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in medicine - November 1, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Lee, J. K., Link, J. M., Hu, J. C. Y., Athanasiou, K. A. Tags: Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine PERSPECTIVES Source Type: research